Early History EARLY FORESTS

Primalforests.-Accol-dillg to fossil records from coal beds, primeval forests of the South eons ago were complex forests of club moss trees and ferns (Uurdette 1995). Since that time forest composition and dixtl-ihu-tion have changed in response to natural phenomena and later, to the influences of man. Over a long period 01' time primeval forests evolved from club ~nosses 2nd ferns to gymnosperms. related to our present-clay pines. and then later to mixed gymnospen-u and angiosperm (deciduous) forests. During the glacial period. tree species migrated north and south and li~est compo~i tion changed as a result of climatic shifts (Burdette 1995). For example, about 20,000 years ago the northern bore-al coniferous forest extended deep into the South. Somewhere around 10,000 B.C., or perhaps before, the first humans immigrated to North America and into the South from across the Bering land bridge after the last glacier had receded to the north. Apparently they followed herds of large mammals such as mammoths, mastodons, giant bison, and ground sloths that they hunted and depended on for sustenance. In the South they found beech-maple hardwood forests. Over time.